


When You Least Expect It (But When You Need It the Most)

by Sandbar



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Childbirth, Darillium, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Episode: 2015 Xmas The Husbands of River Song, River & Doctor Ficathon, River/Doctor Ficathon, Time Babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6036772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandbar/pseuds/Sandbar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time Baby fic: what it says on the tin. </p><p> For the River/Doctor ficathon prompt "Timebaby fic, with a realistic birthing scene"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude

 

 

 

It isn’t possible.

 

That’s what she’d learnt all those years ago, both in her classes at Leadworth School, and again from  her...less traditional...tutors amongst the Church.  Hybrids cannot reproduce. Not mules, not zebroids, not khainags...nor, according to those tutors, humans with Time Lord genetics.     
  


 

The Church had insisted-- and some of her instructors had been quite graphic in their insistence, and in their complete disgust for the idea in general-- and she’d never had cause to doubt them. Why would a weapon even need/want to reproduce? There was no continuing use for even one of her, once the deed was done. She knew that, even as a child, though she tried not to dwell on the implications.

 

“Even on the rare occasions pregnancy occurs, it cannot be maintained,” the child Melody had parroted dutifully, and the truth of that was to be borne out for her on two occasions.

 

The first time it happens, she’s barely eighteen, still living in the funny little house in the lane behind the chemist’s shop, still stealing cars and the occasional bus for fun.  She’s not some kind of slag, despite what the whispers in the school hallways would have one believe (whispers started by a few girls who were a little afraid of her, but mostly by boys who wanted to assert their masculinity with stories of Mels Zucker on her knees in front of them--  _ as if _ ). She knows the truth, but she lets the stories stand. They help keep people at a distance.  It’s safer for everybody to keep their distance, even Amy and Rory sometimes.  (After all, look at her foster parents, brains addled by proximity to the Silence and by the occasional direct clerical intervention. If Kovarian’s people are cruel to her, they are not kind to the Zuckers, either: another serving of guilt she carries with her always.)   So if, by the standards of some in Leadworth School, she’s practically a bloody nun, nobody needs to know it.  Not even her best friends, who-- oddly and ironically parentally-- wonder where they went wrong trying to keep her out of trouble. ( _ Oh Mummy, if only you knew… _)

  
Anyway, she’s barely late (possibly not late at all, given how irregular she’s always been, and she assumes that’s just another irony in her life)-- but things are different. She’s feeling scattered and a bit light-headed, and just that much off her game.  The taste of lager nauseates her and she spends the better part of the weekend in the loo, either ill or needing to pee.  By the time she’s done wondering if it’s not flu, has moved on to wondering if the responsible party is that daft-but-hot supply teacher with the funny hair and sandshoes, or the old Scottish guy she met in London, she’s forgotten a week somewhere and apparently the pregnancy has ended, judging by the peri-pad shoved in her knickers and the fact that she’s really, really craving rare beef.   


  
She’s tells herself  she’s lost time before-- her memory is Swiss cheese, to be honest-- but never an entire baby.  That’s a new one.   


  
She doesn't find her own joke funny. And-- somehow disgusted with herself for the distraction, for the sheer _humanity_ of it all-- she never mentions the experience to anyone, least of all Amy or Rory. 

 

 

##

 

By the time it happens again, she’d nearly forgotten the first.  She’s roughly three earth years into her sentence at Stormcage, and though the medical staff keep records of all their female prisoners’ fertile cycles, hers are all over the charts.  ( _ She could have told them they would be if she’d thought it mattered; they’ve never been predictable for her either, even without the simple fact that she sometimes escapes for weeks at a time, returning bare moments after she’d left. _ ) 

 

It’s a gentler, quieter realisation this time, the feeling that-- something else-- some _one_ else--is present, and it takes her longer to be sure of it.  Long enough she is hopeful-- and terrified-- that the teachers and tutors and clerics might be wrong about hybrids.  She gives up travelling by vortex manipulator and obtains vitamin supplements suitable for humans (better than nothing) from a bazaar in twenty-fifth century Chelsea.  She makes plans to acquire looser clothing and a high-quality perception filter. She is _careful_

 

She makes it almost three and a half months. She is almost to the night she plans to tell the Doctor he will be...is...has become...a father again. She has the evening planned, even is pretty sure she knows how to be sure she gets the right Doctor, one linear enough to not be flummoxed by this tangible proof of their sexual relationship.  She’s almost to the point where she’s allowing herself to think maybe--

 

But only almost. When the cramping begins, when she sees the blood on her pyjama bottoms, she suddenly remembers with horrible clarity the details of that lost week so many years ago. She looks for tally marks on her forearm, and is confused when she finds none. ( _And here she’d thought the nightmares of Kovarian-- the ones that had awakened her, screaming, for the last weeks-- were to do with fear for this baby, not repressed memories of having her first child stolen from her and subjected to unimaginable experimentation before it had half begun_.) 

 

The Stormcage medical staff, even in their brisk and unsympathetic efficiency, are kinder by far than the Church had been. They make no effort to save the pregnancy-- and really, she’s quite sure it wouldn’t be possible anyway or she’d never have allowed them near her-- but this time the process is quick and there’s anaesthesia available, though the look of sheer disgust on the medics' faces is somehow confusingly familiar.  

 

If the warden wonders (and certainly he does), he knows better than to ask. Not a word of this makes it into the official records.  He most emphatically does not want to explain to his higher-ups how a maximum-security prisoner managed to fall pregnant on his watch. If he watches his guards a bit more closely, if he rotates assignments so that only his most trusted men and women are anywhere near one particular cell block, if he stations a one-to-one guard outside the cell until it becomes apparent it's neither needed nor particularly effective, no one ever comments.   

 

River never mentions it to the Doctor, either. The only record is in tiny black script in the corner of one page of her diary.

 

“No more.”  And the date.

  
  


 

 

##

  
  


 

 

She’s never really relied on birth control before, but after this, the Stormcage medical staff insist. She’s too weary and too drained to argue the point.  And honestly, she’d just as soon avoid another experience like either of the two previous herself.  So she acquiesces, a matter that makes her keepers feel just the slightest bit cocky (and a few of the seasoned ones more than a little nervous).  The hormonal implant is changed yearly, right on schedule, without any further discussion, right up until she receives her pardon. Even after, she continues the routine on her own, a quick trip to the Sisters to have the old one removed and the new one injected. It’s several years into her professorship before she receives word that the pharmaceutical company has discontinued the particular admixture she uses-- and at that point she believes she’s probably too old to worry about it, anyway.  At nearly one hundred and seventy years old, she has to be at the end of whatever fertile period she might have had.

 

For thirty years, she’s been right. 

 

River is five years into their second year on Darillium when she realises she’s apparently not as old as she thought she was.

  
  


#

 

**Darillium, second year, sixth month**

 

 

“There’s apparently a sort of-- well, it’s a sort of orchid, except not really, because it’s more like a beehive, but they’re nocturnal, you see, and look a bit like orchids, especially the purple ones--” 

 

Explanations that lurch from word to word like drunken sailors are a constant no matter which of the Doctor’s regenerations is doing the explaining--though River is just a bit taken with the addition of the Scottish accent weaving in and around his words, leaving him nearly incomprehensible when he gets excited. This time, it’s about a rare clump of Darillium Honeysuckle, or possibly a hummingbird. River had lost the plot a good three sentences earlier, to be honest.  Normally, she is able to keep up with him just fine, but lately she’s been easily distracted and just a bit giddy.  Probably need to increase her vitamins, she muses; their sex life has held to a pretty impressive schedule lately and--

 

“River.”

 

She stops and looks up to see him watching her with a quizzical expression on his face, and tries to remember what he’d been going on about when she got lost.

 

“The hummingbirds?” she guesses, but judging by his frown, that’s clearly not the right answer.

 

“Honeysuckle, River, but never mind that.  Have you been--” he trails off, and pulls a face at himself before continuing.  “You look different.”

 

“I haven’t gone off anywhere recently, if that’s what you’re asking, Doctor. So I shouldn’t look any different to the way I did before we went to bed last, or even before that.”  She cocks her head to one side and looks at him, an eyebrow raised.  “Unless  _ you _ ducked out…?”

 

“No!  But you look...round.”  He gets the expression that he wears when he knows he’s said the wrong thing and misses use of his flash cards.  “Rounder.”  When her eyebrows reach nearly to her hairline, he scowls.  “Oh, bollocks.  I’ve said it all wrong.  Have you gained weight?”

 

It’s as hard to be mad at this iteration as it was the previous one, and River ignores the tiny voice in the back of her skull suggesting he’d just expressed a desire for assisted suicide and the loving thing to do would be to dispatch him as efficiently as possible.  Instead, she chuckles at him fondly.  “Darling, do you really miss the otters that much?”

 

He lets out a breath in a manner suggesting he knows exactly how close a call he’s just had, but-- in true form-- doesn’t let it go.  “Your face is rounder.  And your--” His hands sketch very obviously human-female curves roughly a metre and a half off the ground.  “They’re larger, River.  I noticed it last night-- not that I’m complaining, mind you, they’re very lovely and they seemed quite satisfactorily sensitive when I--”

 

“All right, sweetie. You’re going to hurt yourself if you continue in that vein any longer.” She smiles at him, enjoying the idea of him flustered but finding that somewhere, somehow her mind has gotten stuck on sense memories of just what he’d been doing when he apparently noticed that her breasts were  _ satisfactorily sensitive _ . The man did have an amazing mouth: something else that carried over no matter which body he was currently inhabiting. She closed her eyes for just a moment, imagining that mouth, those long fingers...was it getting warmer in here all of a sudden? She hadn’t noticed that she was particularly rounder, but she had noticed her libido was arcing over the roof, and--

 

“”River, you aren’t listening, are you?”

 

“Mm-hmm.” Not quite ready to quit thinking about that mouth yet.

 

“You really don’t mind? Because I thought you might--”

 

“Of course, Sweetie.” ( _ Just get me out of these clothes and shag me against the console right now, Sweetie _ .)

 

She’s still thinking about the mouth-- and the hands-- and other things-- and is, understandably, a bit distracted.  So when he picks up the entertainment remote and begins waving it in front of her (and it starts making puzzled chirping noises reminiscent of a canary on speed) it takes her a moment to notice.  And by then he’s stopped, the chirping’s stopped, and he is staring at her with that gleeful grin of his, as if she’d just given him the best birthday present ever.

Clearly, one of them has completely lost the plot.

 

River is suddenly struck with the fear that it’s  _ not _ the Doctor.

 

“Do you want to tell me why you’re grinning, Sweetie…?” she asks slowly. ( _ I will pay you money to tell me it has nothing to do with that scan you just did with the telly remote _ .)

 

“River!  Why didn’t you tell me?”

 

“Tell you what?” ( _ If you don’t clear this up-- satisfactorily-- in the next two seconds I will open all your veins and let you exsanguinate slowly. ) _

 

The grin is still there.   _ This can’t be good.  _

 

Finally, he stops grinning long enough to speak. “You’re pregnant!”

 

 

 

 


	2. Adagio

 

 

 

Her reaction doesn’t match his. Instead of the enthusiastic delight spread across his face, River feels something she’d categorise somewhere between deep sadness and a sense of impending doom.  

 

River hadn’t thought about children in years. She’d come to accept the fact that it wasn’t going to happen.  She’d buried any maternal longings she might have had in spoiling her little brother-- albeit long distance and via messenger, since she couldn’t be there in person during his infancy or toddlerhood. She’d been a great big sister/ersatz auntie when she finally had met Anthony.  He was older and had despaired of being ever allowed to use a BB gun; River had taught him how to assassinate milk bottles with one shot, had told him wild tales he almost believed of hunting a band of killer rhinoceroses (she carefully avoided calling them Judoon) for days before neatly dispatching them. She’d taught him to hunt squirrels (and snakes, much to Amy’s chagrin, especially once he'd got the hang of smuggling live ones into his room and keeping them in that old aquarium) in the wooded area behind the Williams’s house, out in the new suburbs on the other side of the airport.  But that wasn’t like being around little children. He was nearly eleven by that point, practically a fully functioning human. She’d ruthlessly avoided babies and toddlers, spending her time in universities and combat zones and posh restaurants filled with glitterati. If you want to avoid the wee ones, she reasoned, _dangerous_ and _expensive_ are a good place to start. And coincidentally, those had become two of her favourite words.

 

“River?”  His voice breaks into her thoughts, tentative this time, and his hand is in hers. He’s only just started initiated hand-holding-- despite the fact that his enthusiasm for other types of contact had come back to him nearly instantly-- and the soft intimacy of the action is what makes her realise she was crying. She sniffs and tries to turn away, but he won’t let her.

 

“I-- I can’t.”

 

“It will be fine.  Well, it will be hard, at first.  Babies take up a lot of time, you know, even for people with experience.  But you’ll get the hang of it, and my dad skills--”

 

She shakes her head, willing the tears to stop.  They do, but only just, and not before they’ve left a track on one cheek that she impatiently brushes away.  “You don’t understand.”

 

“You’re scared. River.  I understand that.”

 

“No.  I  _ can’t. _ ”

 

“Because this is our last night…” he ventures, and misinterprets the answering frown.  “And you’re afraid this is why? That I desert you after this? What kind of rubbish husband do you take me for, River?” He lets go of her hand, his frustration and anger at her apparent lack of faith in him bleeding through.

 

The tears start again, but it doesn’t matter. ( _ If he wants to know, then she’ll tell him, and damn him and damn the consequences! _ )  “I’m afraid because it’s happened before!  I’m afraid because it’s not what I ever expected-- and I wouldn’t know how to be a mother even if I could!  And yes, I’m afraid because this is our last night.  I’m afraid because my diary is almost full! I don’t want to die and leave a child, Doctor! I can’t bear the idea of another motherless daughter in this family!”

 

His voice is soft again, stuck on  _ happened before. _  “You’ve had a child...?”

 

“No.  I’ve been pregnant before. Twice. The first time, I’d just taken my A levels and I barely remember what happened. So much of that time's a blur, honestly. The Church...well, anyway, Kovarian had assured me that I’d never be a mother myself and...it doesn't matter. The point is, she was right, as it turned out.” She pauses, sets her mouth in a thin line before continuing.  “And the second time was in Stormcage. I...I conceived the night we went to Paris the first time, and lost the baby three months after." She doesn't look at him, doesn't see the look of misery on his face. She takes a deep breath before continuing, focusing on a particularly mesmerising pattern in the floor. "So you see, it really doesn’t make a difference. I’m not meant to have children, and it’s okay, it’s really okay, but...I never expected this to happen again and...”   She turns her back to him and starts toward the small kitchen, then stops with one hand against the door frame.  Her tension shows in her hands, one stiff and white knuckled, holding onto the frame for dear life, the other in a fist at her side.  “I’ll deal with it.”

 

“River.”  As quickly as his anger had come, it is gone, and his voice is gentle again.  He puts his hands on her shoulders and tries to draw her into his arms but her posture remains stiff. He sighs.   “River.  I’m so sorry...it will be different this time.  And you’ll be a brilliant mother.”

 

She stands stiffly in his arms, tears on her lashes, tears drying on her cheeks, leaving salt trails down the side of her face.  She doesn’t say anything, afraid of what she’d say and what he’d say after that.  It’s too much: all she’d wanted ten minutes ago was to go see the damn hummingbirds, to come back after and fall into bed and spend the next hour...or maybe two hours...however long it ended up being...with her husband, warm and naked and familiar.  Now everything is askew and her own body has turned traitor, and despite that...despite it all, she still wants to be in bed with her husband, and not for comfort, either.

 

Well.  Some things never change, she supposes, and bites back a half-smile despite herself-- and knows immediately he’s seen it.

 

He tilts her head up, on finger under her chin, and smiles at her. A regeneration ago she’d have had to look up at him from a disadvantage of about five inches-- now they’re almost of a height, and she wonders if he’d done that on purpose, or if it had been some subconscious adjustment, like the apparent age or the broad Scottish vowels.

 

“In it together, River Song, for better or for worse,” he tells her, and at that, she lets herself melt into his embrace, her hands slipping under his jacket and around his back.  

 

His response-- his mouth against hers, his palm broad against the small of her back-- promises _warm and naked and familiar_ , and she sighs against his mouth and resolves to trust in her own future despite her better judgment. The universe has to cut her a break eventually, right? Maybe that time is now. 

 

Meantime, the hummingbirds-- or honeysuckle, or whatever it is-- will wait for them.

 

 

 

  
  
  



	3. Slow air, duolo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thank you for being patient!

 

 

 

Throughout the years he’s known her-- throughout the years he’s shared her life, and her bed-- there has been a constant.  No more than three sleep cycles in a row pass without River awakening after just a few hours, suffering once again from night terrors.

 

He’d hoped that had changed through the years, hoped she’d found some peace, even while he had not. His sleep was still disturbed by stone angels and insane Daleks, by the an occasional dream lord and-- most often and most agonisingly-- by metallic crowns on red-gold curls.  That’s okay, though.  That’s him.  The fact that it hadn’t changed for River after all this time broke his heart-- hearts-- and was only tempered by the knowledge that at least she slept just that much easier in his arms. If, when he dozed off himself, he occasionally woke straddled by 9 or so stone of wife...well.  There was, at this point in their timelines, at least a sixty-three percent chance she was planning to fuck him rather than kill him, so he considered it a win, overall.

  
  
  


 

 

**Darillium, second year, tenth month.**

  
His catnap is cut short by River shifting restlessly next to him, and he automatically turns to reach for her.  He knows what to expect.  

 

“No,” she insists to some dream figure, and her voice is as stubborn in sleep as it is when she’s awake. It’s a trait he remembers back to her teen years as Mels, and he almost smiles; would have done if it hadn’t been for the reason why she was arguing with some nameless person in her sleep.  

 

“No, you can’t-- I won’t--” 

  
  
She moves seamlessly from stubborn to insistent to desperate in a few syllables, and he reaches for her, knowing what comes next, but she bats him away.

 

“No!  Stop!  You can’t take--  I won’t let you!”

 

He moves his arm over her protectively, the other already pinned underneath, and pulls her against his chest.  She’s too far in to separate dream from reality and fights him hard, leaving scratches he won’t think fondly on in the morning.  An elbow to his left kidney makes him wince, but this is still familiar ground, and he holds tight as she struggles.

 

“River.  It’s me.  You’re safe,” he murmurs into her hair, and pushes-- tries to push-- tendrils of  _ home _ and _ safe _ and  _ love _ into her thoughts.  Her barriers are up though, stronger than he’s seen them in ages and he’s not sure it’s helping. She’s still fighting him, and for a fleeting second he wonders if he isn’t too old for this.  He tries anyway: hauls her half upright, his back to the headboard and her struggling in his lap, sheets and blankets tangled around their legs and falling onto the floor. She tries to kick him and misses, barely.  He responds by hooking an ankle neatly over hers (something he’d never manage had she been awake) and immobilising her left foot.

 

She screams in response: wordless, anguished, nearly animal in its pain and terror.  Then she collapses, shuddering and sobbing, curled into herself and rocking and still so very inaccessible..  “No! No no nonono…”

 

_ This is a bad one _ , he thinks,  _ the worst in awhile _ .  He holds her as she cries, still projecting safety and love at her.  If he can’t get through to her maybe he can get through to--

 

Oh.

 

_ Ohhh. _

 

“You can’t take--” wasn’t meant to be followed by the word  _ me _ .  

 

As if in confirmation-- maybe that psychic link was more effective than he thought-- River lets out a shuddering sigh and clings to him, damp cheek against his bare shoulder.  “They took our baby,” she whispers brokenly, and he can’t tell if she’s still asleep enough she believes it to be true, or if she’s roused enough to realise she’s safe in the TARDIS, repeating the theme of the nightmare for him.  He moves one hand slightly to splay across her skin just under her navel, the roundness under his hand evidence of a small but definitely present Time Lord (Lady?) to be.

 

“You’re safe, River. No one can harm you or the baby,” he tells her softly.  “I won’t let them.”

 

“You can’t--” she insists, and if there’s a note of leftover fear in her voice, a broken note, he doesn’t mention it.  Has never mentioned it, and won’t, as long as they both are...well.  He won’t, that’s all.  Instead, he smiles into her hair, his hand still warm against her skin.  

  
  
“If I can protect 8 billion humans, I can protect our baby.”

 

At that, she lifts her head-- just slightly-- and looks at him out of the corner of one eye.  “Doctor, I know your track record.”

 

He sputters for just a second, then recovers.  “And if I can’t-- I can, you know, but  _ if _ I can’t-- I know someone who can.  And we will protect this baby, River Song and I, to the ends of the universe.”

 

“I’m River Song,” she murmurs into his chest.

 

“And you and I will protect the wee one, River.  With everything we have.”

 

He shifts position to lie back on the bed, still holding her close, his hand still lying protectively over their growing child. Eventually, to the rhythm of his heartbeats, she falls asleep.

 

  
  
  
  
  



	4. Tardamente

 

 

 

 

  
**Second year, twelveth month**

 

 

  
For the first time in all the years they’d been together, River feels..shy?

 

Surely not.

 

The Doctor has seen her without clothes, obviously.  Half the known universe has probably seen her without clothes-- it takes more than the absence of a few scraps of fabric to make River Song blush.  He’d even seen her naked during the second pregnancy, though he hadn’t realised it at the time, and after she was sure, she’d managed to avoid that by seeking out very young versions, early in his Eleventh regeneration and even into his Tenth (and once, his Sixth, though that was a particularly unsatisfying experience and she’s not likely to try to repeat it). 

 

Now though...now, in the privacy of their bedroom, preparing for her day ( _or what passes for it here in this world of neverending moonlight_ ),  it feels different.  He’s marked her-- and not just with teeth or hands, no bruises or soft bite marks from enthusiastic lovemaking, nothing that will fade in a few days’ time.  She’s marked physically, yes, but it’s another sort of physicality-- a rounder face, softly swelling breasts, darker nipples, and a feeling of something-- a fullness?-- above her pubic bone that isn’t yet apparent under her clothes.  

 

She’s also marked emotionally, mentally. She’s not as sharp now, her corners rounded, angles softened.  She remembers-- as well as she remembers anything ( _ her memory still isn’t what it could be, even all these years since she’d last encountered Kovarian’s electrically-charged clerics. Most of the time it doesn’t bother her but sometimes she suspects the diary is as much for her own use as any purposes shared with the Doctor _ )-- the feeling from her pregnancy in Stormcage: a feeling of belonging, of  _ being owned. _ Of being not entirely her own.  And for someone who’s spent years asserting her independence and her ownership of self, it’s at once heady and terrifying.  It’s also something she can’t really put a name to, but which feels...oh Gods, it feels...right?

 

Amy would probably, if she’d ever been asked, tell her it’s called being loved.  But of course she’s never been asked.  Amy and Rory will never know this grandchild, never even know they have one.  Amy had just the one pregnancy, and no baby to show for it; River’s had twice as many, and thus far no babies to show for it, either.  She wonders if this time will be different, if she’ll hold a tiny daughter or son in her arms, a wee Gallifreyan with curls and questionable eyebrows.  And for a moment fear ( _terror_ )  bubbles up in her stomach.  

 

Kovarian is dead, the Church largely dismantled, she reminds herself.  

 

She’s safe.

 

No more motherless children.

 

No more childless mothers. ( _ Oh, Amy… _ )

 

Tears threaten again at that ( _and how many people would pay good money to see River Song cry? They should see me now, damn them._ ). Of all the creatures in the universe, she is the last one who should feel guilty about her mother’s kidnapping, the torture she had undergone-- and yet somehow she does, somehow she always feels as though it was something she should have been able to fix.  Not the Doctor, not Rory or Vastra or Jenny or Danny Boy or Strax...just her.  ( _I should have been enough_ ) __  
  


 

She clamps down firmly on any thoughts of Amy, and concentrates on the man who’s quietly  entered the room, the man who’s standing before her, watching her with an expression she’s almost afraid to put a name to.

 

“Are you--”  The question hangs in the air, unfinished by the man who’s still getting the hang of negotiating emotions, let alone the emotional minefield River has become.

 

“I’m fine.” She blinks back the unshed tears, and if she dares him to notice, he’s at least a quick enough study that he doesn’t take the dare.  She turns away from him, grabbing at the first thing she can find to put on.  Unfortunately for her, it’s a pair of his trousers, and while it’s always been a bit of a questionable fit, she knows damn well there’s no way she’ll ever fit into them now. She bites back an incredibly profane curse in Gallifreyan, one not used by people of any kind of status ( _ and one not learnt from the Doctor; she’d be surprised if he’s had cause to remember it lo these last millennia _ ) and begins to rummage through the pile of clothing on a nearby chair.

 

“River.”   
  


 

“I’ll be dressed in-- just give me a moment, I can’t find my knickers.  Where to tonight, Sweetie? The Rosette Nebula?  Or we could visit that bazaar in twenty-third century New New Zealand, I know you like the tea shop--”  She still has her back to him, and doesn’t realise he’s crossed the room while she’s talking; not until he lays one hand on the curve of her back.

 

“River.”

 

She stands and turns quickly enough she unbalances herself just slightly, and nearly falls into him.  He grabs her to keep her from it, and they end up much closer than either had intended.  She glances up at him in reflex.

 

_ Oh. _

 

_ That’s how it is, then. _

 

He releases his grip on one arm to move his hand to her cheek, then threads it into her still-damp-from-the-shower curls.

 

“Um...not going out then?” she says, and a ghost of a smile plays across his face.

 

“Maybe later.”  
  


 

He pulls her in for a kiss, soft, slow, gentle ( _so at odds with the brusque and occasionally awkward stick insect of a man he presents to everyone else!_ ) and she finds herself melting into him despite herself. The heightened libido of early pregnancy hasn’t really abated, and brand new body image insecurities be damned.  She wants him.  Wants him with every cell in her body, including several she’d never previously considered as erogenous zone material. Dear Gods, she wants--

 

“Slow down, girl,” he whispers to her, and she can feel him smiling against the skin just in front of her ear.  “We have all the time in the world.”

 

She buries her face in the curve of his neck, alternating small kisses and smaller bites against the skin there.  “I’m at a disadvantage here,” she mumbles between bites. “You have on clothes, and I don’t.”

 

“It doesn’t have to be a disadvantage,” he responds, and his hands drift down her sides, across her ribs.  He leans in to kiss her again and his hands still, one on her hip, one warm against the skin of her lower abdomen.  In response, River feels a slight flutter-- one she could almost mistake for arousal, except--

 

“Doctor! She moved.”

 

“What?  Who moved?”

 

“The baby.  She _moved_.”   


 

  
River’s face is almost pure wonder, adulterated only a little bit with the apprehension that’s taken up permanent residence since the discovery of her pregnancy.  He smiles at her expression-- so completely unlike her public persona, and yet so completely the woman he’s known for so long.  He leaves his hand in place, applying just the slightest bit more pressure, but their child resolutely refuses to respond again.

 

“She’s bloody-minded as her mother,” he mutters almost to himself, and River laughs.  

 

“Oh, I think there’s blame enough to go around for that trait, sweetie.”

 

“It’s your mother’s Scottish genetics.”

 

  
She laughs again, and looks pointedly at him ( _his own Scottishness bears more than a little resemblance to her mother, though how he ended up with a Glaswegian accent instead of Amy’s Highlands one she’s never quite been able to figure out.  Though she supposes since he had a northern accent in his ninth regeneration-- or his tenth, or whatever number that was-- it probably doesn’t matter_ )--

 

One thing that hadn’t changed between his last self and this one is his ability to switch from thought to thought, idea to interest without the slightest bit of warning.  River is suddenly aware that, while his left hand is still splayed across her belly, his right hand has pulled her close again and his mouth is doing much more interesting things--

 

“Do that again,” she tells him, and gasps when he does.  She shifts slightly, unzipping his trousers as he complies, threading her fingers through his hair. Her nails scratch at his scalp and he makes a muffled sound against her skin; unthinking, she pulls and is rewarded with a bite that melds pain and pleasure, sends it running through her veins.   Her muscles are tight when he lifts his head from her breast and pushes her abruptly back against the bed.

 

“You didn’t have to stop,” she tells him, moving to lean up on one elbow.  She watches him as he removes the belt from his trousers, and a thrill runs through her.  “Oh, it’s going to be like that?  It’s been awhile.”

 

If it’s possible to manage a stern grin, he does.  “No, it’s not going to be like that, not that you don’t deserve it, my wee minx.  And in a few more months’ time, you’ll no doubt have plenty to atone for, and my belt will be the least of it. But for now--” his face softens at the fleeting look of disappointment that crosses her face.  “You’re with child, River, and I want you to know how beautiful you are, right this very moment.  Because I don’t think you do, not really. And I’m rubbish with words, so I need to show you another way.”

 

He removes the rest of his clothing-- shirt, socks, trousers-- and lays them on top of the pile before walking around to the far side of the bed.  River has scooted up toward the headboard, and he lies down next to her.  The sheets and blankets are still rumpled from sleep, kicked down to the bottom of the bed. ( _Well, they’re not likely to get straightened out anytime soon_.) She reaches for him, and he moves toward her until they’re skin to skin, almost perfectly aligned, blue eyes meeting green and her right leg swung over his.

 

“Do you really think I’m beautiful like this?”  She’s not entirely convinced. “I’m only going to get bigger, and rounder, and look like that blueberry girl from Willie Wonka.”

 

“My favorite planet,” he replies, and she laughs and swats his shoulder.

 

“It’s a children’s story, you liar, from twentieth century Earth!  And you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” she’s laughing, but just a bit frustrated.

 

“I take your point.  Look...River…”  he pauses just long enough that she begins to worry a bit about what will come next.  “I told you I’m rubbish with words. You’ve lived with this me long enough to know that’s so.  But I want you to know...the only thing more beautiful than you are is...well,  _ more  _ you.”

 

He kisses her, softly and sweetly as he can manage ( _ still full of teeth, perhaps, but too much sweetness and she’d be looking for evidence of a Zygon infiltration, or Nestene duplicity-- and ripping his head off to check to see if it’s swappable is probably contraindicted _ ).  “Now lean back, because if you’re going to ask for words I want you to pay full attention here.”

 

“If I don’t pay full attention, will you do everything over?”

 

He blinks, then laughs, and pokes her with one long finger right below her navel.  “You in there-- your mother is a cheeky one.  Don’t be taking after her.” He looks back up at her. “Now listen.  This is important.”

 

“I’m listening.”

 

She watches him curiously as he sits up and twines a lock of her hair around the same finger, pulling it forward so that it’s in front of her eyes.  “D’you see this?”

 

“It’s my hair, sweetie.  I see it every day.”

 

“Yes, well...it’s longer and thicker and even curls more than it used to, now that you’re pregnant, though I don’t know what practical use that actually is.  It’s more untameable than the rest of you, and attacks me in my sleep.”  His face softens.  “Your hair is beautiful, River, like something from a Renaissance painting, only possibly carnivo-- no, scratch that. But it's wild and beautiful and I’m very fond of it.”

 

She smiles.  “Thank you sweetie.”

 

He lets go of the curl and cups her cheek.  “Your face is fuller now.  It’s soft and feminine…” he thinks for a moment before continuing.  “And sometimes I catch you in a certain light that just makes you look like the holiest Madonna never painted.”

 

It's lovely and not a bit clumsy, and she flushes pink at the compliment. He leans in to kiss her again before moving on, ducking his head to her breast.  She watches his face as he stares for a moment, then carefully wraps his tongue around a nipple before sucking it into his mouth. Her back arches slightly, giving him better access, and she makes that small noise in the back of her throat that he's come to love-- then a moment later he raises his head to look her in the eye.   
  


 

“You know I’m very fond of these, and find them beautiful.  And now there’s a bit more of them, so I certainly will not complain.”  
  
  


“You’ll have to share them in a bit,” she reminds him, and if her voice is just slightly breathless, it’s because his hands are taking up where his mouth left off.

 

“Oh, I’ll share.  But only with the babe, and only for a little while.”  

 

  
  
He punctuates his possessiveness with a small nip before moving on, hands skating across her ribs, across the swell of her abdomen--

 

“Doctor!  What are you--”

 

It's a moment before he raises his head to look at her again, and when he does, there's an expression on his face that she'd have to catalogue between _mostly unrepentant_ and _mischievous_. 

 

“Well, it’s just that I’ve left my mark, so to speak-- I thought I should sign the masterpiece.”  

 

He grins at her, gesturing to the impressively red hickey blooming right above her pubic line. River bursts out laughing. 

 

“You’re insane!”

 

He cocks one eyebrow at her.  “Madman.  With a box.”

 

The moment stretches out between them, RIver leaning back on her elbows against a pile of pillows, the Doctor grinning at her over the swell of her belly.  Finally, RIver grins and says “is there more?  Do continue.”

 

“Oh, the very best part,” he promises, and moves to the bottom of the bed before slowly bringing her knees apart.

 

“River, I’m not one for a lot of touchy-feely stuff--”

 

“And yet, we're both naked, and I’m pregnant.”

 

“Yes, well.  You.  It’s all down to you.  I didn’t want physical contact with anyone because I’d had it, you know, and thought for such a long time it was gone. And that was the end of that.”  He runs his hands across her thighs as he speaks, and his expression is far away, almost as if he’s speaking to a ghost.  “I never expected to find you again.  You’re a gift, River.  This-- us-- that’s a gift.  And that we made a baby in such a wonderful way...well, that’s the biggest gift anyone’s ever given me.  I don’t know if I can ever tell you how much that means.  I'm no good at thank yous. But I can try to show you.”

 

His hands are gentle as he strokes her, opening her up slowly.  River’s breath hitches as he touches her.  This should be familiar, commonplace by now ( _heavens know we’ve done it often enough_ )  but it’s different, always different, never rote or routine or boring.  And this time he’s taking it slow, gentle: first lazy circles around and over her clit, then he slips languid fingers into her.  He’s still slow and gentle, touching her in a rhythm which could, should be maddening and not-quite-enough.  Instead it’s like slipping into a warm liquid haze, comforting and reassuring and oh, so incredibly sensual. She's enthralled, so much so she barely registers as he adds a third finger, then his mouth against her clit, soft licks and suckling-- only becomes aware of what’s happening when she finds herself suddenly at the top of a very high, steep hill, and she’s falling, falling…

 

Flying…

 

River comes crying out in Gallifreyan, her orgasm shattering, and he’s never heard anything more beautiful.  
  
  
  
  
  


 


	5. Polyphony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: Darillium years have fifteen months. Because why not? (Not that this matters, except for those keeping track of dates concerning River's pregnancy)

 

 

 

 

**Third year, first month**

  
  
There comes a point in every pregnant woman’s life when it’s easier just to never leave the house.

 

Since she can’t exactly go out and stir up trouble for fun and profit-- and because even the Doctor requires recovery time-- River turns to the third great love of her life..

 

Research.

 

The problem with Gallifreyan pregnancies, River notes to herself, is that there’s bloody little information to be had on them.  While technically possible, they’d gone out of fashion ages ago in favour of the much tidier weaving of genetic material on looms as needed.  Had she been of a mind to weave a baby or two ( _ I wonder if that might shine any light on Four’s attachment to that ridiculous scarf? _ ) she’d have found any number of instruction books, manuals, scholarly tomes written by long-winded Time Lord intellectuals exploring ramifications physical, social and spiritual.  Instead, she finds exactly four references.  One is in a dialect so ancient and obscure that-- after hours of the library lights flickering in displeasure and River swearing inventively in earth languages nearly as long dead as the Gallifreyan-- even the TARDIS gives up translating it.  And though River spends the next hour begging, pleading, and threatening to bring out the big guns-- literally-- the ship is not dissuaded from her refusal. 

  
  
The next two books-- equally old, but for some reason not nearly as dusty--  are what had once passed, on Gallifrey, for pornography.  There are some wonderfully inventive-- if possibly anatomically unlikely-- illustrations, she notes.  Illustrations  in three dimensions.  After several  minutes (and after scrawling a quick note in the margin of page twenty-seven) she sets those aside for later perusal and spends the next few hours studying the last.

 

That one is small, barely an abstract of what she gathers is a larger set of specialised medical texts.  The texts themselves are nowhere to be found in the TARDIS; perhaps time-locked on Gallifrey itself, perhaps available at some library somewhere, but not, regretfully, here on the TARDIS.  Certainly not in what passes as a library on Darillium proper. That one’s woefully inadequate, other that its extensive collection of twenty-third century romance novels. River wonders if there’d be a copy on the Library Planet, and resolves to ask the Doctor what he thinks.  She knows he’s been there, though the references to it have been oddly scrubbed from TARDIS information banks.  _ Well, in any case, it couldn’t have been recently.  The place has been under quarantine for centuries, so unless time travel was involved.. _ . _ Maybe a quick in and out with a vortex manipulator...f it would ensure the safety of this child, it should be feasible to check the place out… _

__  
_  
_ River sighs, stretches her arms overhead and goes back to reading the abstract.  Nearly as she can make out, Gallifreyan pregnancy lasted just a bit longer than does human ( _ it couldn’t have been shorter?  _ she thinks as she massages out her second leg cramp of the last few hours).  Labor works roughly the same way, though there are no hints as to how long it lasts or how to tell the onset.  ( __ Well, no doubt it’s as they say: when it happens, you’ll know it.)  Still, as time grows closer-- by human standards she’d have a bit over five weeks left-- she’d like some sort of information on what to expect.

 

“Activate Voice Interface,” River says.  She’s never tried it before, but she wants to give it a go.  Her only other option is to go to the Sisters of the Infinite Schism, and quite frankly, she hadn’t enjoyed her last sojourn there all that much.  They were a little too curious ( _ well, they are cat people, I suppose, but still, there comes a point-- _ ) about her genetic makeup and her origins, and she simply didn’t want to go through that again.  The poking, the prodding...the evening nurse with the fish breath...She simply could not bear to go through that again, especially with a half-Gallifreyan baby on board, and--

 

“This is the voice interface.”

 

River looked up, startled.  It worked-- oh, it worked, all right, just a bit too well.  She found herself staring into the faces of two distinct holograms: one with long red hair and an oversized jumper, one with dark hair and clothing that could only be described as  _ space steampunk. _

 

“Mother!” (Which one she’s addressing is anyone’s guess.  Even River isn’t entirely sure.)

 

“I am the TARDIS voice interface,” comes the response in Inverness-accented vowels.  The other image says nothing, but for a moment River fancies she can see its expression soften around the eyes before the mask slips back into place.

 

“Tell me about human-Gallifreyan hybrid pregnancy.”

 

“There have been/will be/are limited hybrid pregnancies involving Time Lords or Ladies.  It is not impossible, it is only highly unlikely. But you know that.  Knew that. Will know that. Speech is so very confusing, my watery girl!”

 

River smiles broadly.  “But it’s possible?  The baby will survive?”

  
  
“Data on hybrid pregnancies is limited,” the Amy-hologram responds.  “There’s no way to be certain of the outcome of a hybrid pregnancy.  Possibly complications include neonatal morbidity and mortality, maternal morbidity and mortality, prolonged labour--”

  
  
“That orangey one is so...Scottish!” complains the second hologram-- well, it might be a hologram, though RIver is beginning to think the TARDIS herself hitched a ride alongside the voice interface program, somehow.  There’s far too much personality for a voice interface, isn’t there? 

  
  
“Mother?” she asks again, and yes, there is definite softening around the eyes.   River’s own eyes are beginning to water, just the slightest bit, and she dashes the back of her left hand across her face and tries to believe it’s just an allergy to something.  

 

“I am the TARDIS voice interface.  You are River Song, the woman who married the Doctor.  You are the mother of--”

 

“Spoilers!” the TARDIS/Idris hologram says suddenly, and River laughs at both their expressions. ( _ Who knew holograms had personalities? Then again, it’s a hologram of my mother... _ )  “You can’t give her that information!”

 

“And who put you in charge?” hologrammatic Amy demands in tones so characteristically  _ Pond _ that RIver is left with a sudden burst of longing.

 

"I _am_ in charge!" the holographic TARDIS/Idris declares, and at that, the Amy hologram looks affronted. 

 

"I am her mother!" Now it's both at once, and River's eyes grow wide even as she bites back a smile at the outrage being declared in stereo. 

 

“I am time and relative dimension in space.  You are a voice interface.”

 

“Which means I am part of you.  Think on that, will you.”

 

“Then I can make you disappear.”

 

“Just you try it.”

 

For one long long moment River stares in fascination as her mothers...well, sort of her mothers...glare at one another.  Then the TARDIS snaps her fingers and Amy vanishes, though an outraged glare lingers, Cheshire Cat-like, for just a few seconds before disappearing with the rest of her.

 

“Oh!” River is torn between finding the whole exchange hilarious and a sudden feeling of bereavement at losing Amy again, even in hologrammatic version.  The tears well up even as she laughs, and the TARDIS gazes at her with an expression that might, on a normal human, be fond, even sympathetic.

  
  
“Spoilers,” she says again.  “But...you’re okay.  Will be okay.  There--” she screws up her face, appearing to find the right word.  “Will be.  There will be long music. You love it. Will love it. Always and completely?”

  
  
She snaps her fingers one more time, looking quite pleased with herself, and River is left staring at the library walls once again, wondering what, exactly, “long music” is supposed to mean.

  
  
Something to do with the Singing Towers she supposes, this being Darillium.

 

 

 

 

  
  



	6. Bridge

 

 

 

 

“Amelia.”

 

“Not Amelia.”

 

“But it’s your mother’s name, River!  Why not Amelia?”

 

She shakes her head firmly.  “That’s precisely why, Sweetie. I won’t have you looking at this child and expecting her to be my mum.  She’s going to be her own person.”

 

From the other side of the console there’s a muttered comment which sounds something like  _ bloody well couldn’t stop her from that-- she’s your daughter _ .  River smiles despite herself.  She knows it’s a compliment, even if it’s offered up by one irritated Time Lord.

  
  
“Donna, then.”

 

“No.”

 

“Clara.”

 

“Again, no.”

 

“Sarah Jane,” he offers after a minute, knowing that she’s met Sarah, and has developed a fondness for her-- particularly after that weekend the Slitheen tried to enter the Derby and-- 

  
  
“No, Sweetie.  She won’t be named after any of your assistants.”

 

“Companions,” he grumbles, and there are no more suggestions for a moment.  River waits, suspicious of what might be running through that mind of his. She’s not by nature a jealous woman, having spent a good bit of her young adulthood in the fifty-first century.  They both, after all, are plenty old enough to have had past lovers, even past spouses.  Possibly, when it comes to that, current ones, though  _ current _ is a bit subjective, considering.  Still--

  
  
“Not Rose.” Her voice is quite firm, and he suppresses a chuckle.

 

“Never even thought of it, Dear.”

 

River shifts in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position.  It’s getting harder by the day to find one, but she finally settles, resumes her perusal of the baby name book.  She's up to the Js, but hasn't come up with anything that suits. Perhaps they could just wait and let the creature name herself when she gets older. It's not like keeping the same name is a family tradition, that's for sure. For his part, the Doctor is saying nothing, not even mumbling to himself ( _ lying low  _ is not necessarily overstatement) and things are quiet again... 

  
  
...until a horrifying thought occurs to her.

  
  
“And I will not name her Missy, either!”

  
  
His response is a delighted sort of cackle. “Oh Gods no!  But I was just thinking, what about Harriet, you know it’s the--”

  
  
River casts look of her own-- one best described as _baleful_ \-- at him.  “I know who she is.”

  
  
She sighs, absently rubbing at the base of her belly, over her tunic.  “This baby is going to be so enormous she’s going to need three names.  She’s already heavy enough I need a sling or something and she’s not even done yet.”

  
  
“Only two more weeks, River.  It won’t be long now.“  The Doctor comes around the console and crosses to where she’s sitting on the steps. He settles on the step next to her, brushing a quick-- and possibly slightly wary-- kiss across her temple.   “You’re nearly there.”

  
  
“Easy for you to say. You're not the one currently housing the entire New New Manchester United football club.”  She leans wearily against him and his arm slips around her, rubbing circles and suspiciously comforting words in Gallifreyan into her back.

  
  
River loses track of how long they sit together like that, nearly dozing off in the companionable silence.  She’s not quite able to get comfortable, though, and shifts from time to time, leaning heavily against his shoulder.  For his part, the Doctor is almost completely still except to accommodate her movements.  He continues rubbing her back, the location of his hand moving slightly in response to her sighs and sounds of pleasure-- or, occasionally, displeasure when he seems to find an uncomfortable spot.  She’s been achy lately-- requests for back rubs have been coming with increasing frequency, and he’s learned how to best ease the muscle strain from the extra thirty or so pounds she’s carrying in front of her.  Sometimes the back rubs lead to other things-- pregnancy has done nothing to interfere with either of their sex drives, except possibly to ramp up River’s.  Admittedly, they’ve had to become increasingly creative of late, but neither has exactly voiced complaints.  Sex isn’t the objective this time, though.  He reads her well enough to know what she wants, and when.  And for now, she’s content with his hands on her back, offering counterpressure in the form of Gallifreyan love poetry for her aching muscles.

  
  
“I swear this child is going to be the size of a fully grown Sontaran,” she grumbles, shifting again.  She tries to find a comfortable spot and finally gives up, pushing herself to her feet with as much grace as she can muster.  It’s not much, at this point, though the Doctor wisely refrains from saying so and just watches as she moves through some Silurian military stretching exercises...or possibly Tai Chi.  Could be either, or both; they look remarkably similar and there are rumours the former actually inspired the latter.  She’s partway through her second  _ strike tiger _ when she stops and straightens, hands going to the small of her back.

  
  
“The tiger escaped?” he asks archly.  Her glare elicits a quick expression of surrender and  _ I-will-never-say-that-again. _

 

“This baby…!”

 

Something occurs to him, and he looks at her with a quizzical expression, at least until she notices.

 

“What?”

 

“Well-- it’s only you’ve been complaining about how heavy the baby is at five minute intervals all afternoon,” he explains, and a slow grin begins to bloom on his face as realisation begins to dawn on hers.  “I think you might be in labour.”

  
  


 

##

  
  


 

Hours later, hours of walking the halls of the TARDIS, hours of back rubs and breathing together and increasingly frequent stops for River to lean against the wall and display her flair for blasphemies in ancient languages, one very important thing has been established.  River had a mission in mind for just as soon as she was physically able-- and when she was, Fernande Lamaze was going to have one hell of a lot of explaining to do. Possibly at gunpoint.

  
  
“I can’t do it, Sweetie,” River insists wearily, the third time they pass the medical bay.  “We need to stop.  I can’t birth this baby.”  She pushes a lock of hair off her face-- it had escaped from the braid she’d put it in over an hour before, but she’s just now noticed. She leans back against the wall of the hallway and her breathing becomes shallower, more rapid.  She whispers something to herself (more profanity; he recognises the Sumerian words for  _ castration _ and  _ feed to the wolves  _ and he immediately resolves to have the TARDIS translation matrix disabled until this whole thing is over) and her hands become fisted in the fabric of her nightie.

  
  
“We probably should see how far dilated you are, River,” he says as gently as he knows how, once the contraction has subsided.  

  
  
She casts a very impressive glare his direction-- or at least, it would be impressive if it weren't for the weariness behind it. With the weariness, it's less impressive and more just passively homicidal. “Please tell me...that doesn’t involve what I think it does.”

 

He grins.  “You never complained before about my fingers--”  He notices the murderous expression on her face and stops, remembering the Sumerian swears of just a minute earlier. It's just possible she's not in the mood for humor right now.  “Right.  Completely forgot the wife's a former free-lance assassin. Ignore that last bit, then. Let’s just go in here and have a look, shall we?”

  
  
River, resigned, allows him to help her into the med bay; allows him to help her up onto the exam bed.  The TARDIS has thoughtfully supplied a fiftieth-century birthing bed for the occasion.  Unfortunately, things haven’t changed much since the twenty-first, and the foot rests still bear an uncomfortable resemblance to stirrups.  River has a flash of memory back to her life as Mels and a visit with Amy to the women’s clinic in Leadworth, and firmly and metaphorically stamps it out before any other memories surface. Sometimes having been your own mum's best school friend can be awkward.  She watches as the Doctor-- in actions disturbingly appropriate for his name-- pulls a glove onto his hand and pours lubricant onto the first two fingers.

 

“Just...wait--” 

  
  
“Another contraction?”

 

She nods, unable or unwilling to say anything else, breathing heavily through it.  Her eyes close at the peak, and he can see pain written across her features.She doesn’t cry though, just holds the bed linens in a vise grip.  When the pain eases a bit her eyes open again, and as she nods, her knees splay apart.  “Get on with it, then.”

 

The Doctor moves between her legs, top of his forearm resting against her thigh, and

 

“Christ, Doctor, are you reaching for my lungs?”

  
  
He withdraws his hand and nudges her knees back together before stripping off the glove.  “We...we have a little time yet.”

 

She glares at him, but her attention is deflected just a bit by the knowledge that another contraction is nearing.  “Define  _ a little time yet _ .”

 

He holds up his hand, index and middle fingers spread, but even through the pain River can tell they’re not nearly as far apart as they need to be.  He says nothing, and she doesn’t ask, for another forty seconds or so.  Then:  “Six centimeters. We maybe could call it seven, but…”

 

“I hate you.”

  
He settles onto the birthing bed with her, and pulls her against him. The palm of his hand is warm against the skin of her abdomen, and it soothes the gathering tightness that signals the onset of another contraction. 

 

 “No you don’t.”

 

 

 

 


	7. Brahms Opus 49 (Wiegenlied)

 

 

 

 

_ I can’t do this. _

 

_ You can. You’re River Song.  You’re amazing.  And you have this. _

 

_ I can’t. _

 

And then

 

_ Is this how it ends?  This is why there’s no more to our story?  I fucking die in childbirth? _

 

She’s given up on talking.  She knows he can hear her mind-to-mind, their bodies pressed this close to one another, and she just hasn’t the energy to form words now, not even the occasional swear.  She's so tired. Beyond tired, beyond exhausted even.  Spent.  She’s pretty sure she doesn’t really expect to die in childbirth, that she just has run out of ways to express that she needs this to  _ stoprightnowplease _ .  On the other hand, aside from a very real regret that she wouldn’t be here for this child she's just coming to know, she’s worn down to the point where she’d be okay with death, if it would just make everything stop.  

 

Almost.

 

She’s not breathing through the contractions any more.  She’s riding them, eyes closed, lips parted, lying on her left side now because it seems to be better for the baby.  Recently she's felt little tendrils of consciousness prickling at the back of her mind, tentative and unsure and new.  No words, not even really coherent thought, just a drifting sense of _I'm here_ and _know me_. But now there's a distinct feeling of  _ better now _ when she’s not on her back-- and anyway, she’s long past walking, or kneeling, or anything that remotely suggests upper body control.  All thought and energy is centered in one spot and it occurs to her that now would be a really grand time to push, and she does, and--

 

“Yes!  That’s it.” And then the encouraging tones from the bottom of the bed turn into astonishment.  “I see hair!  The wee thing has a lot of hair, River.”

 

There's a mirror off to one side, angled so that she can see where he's gesturing.  Or it should be, anyway, but somehow the Doctor has gotten himself between the mirror and where it's aimed, or perhaps she's just angled wrong.  She's considering asking him to shift, but the words are too much bother, and she focuses on the work at hand.

 

“Are you surprised?” she manages to ask wearily when the urge to push subsides, mirror forgotten.  She gestures at a cup of tea, now gone lukewarm, sitting at the bedside.  It’s some sort of concoction common to Greenleaf-Dyton, intended to aid childbirth.  If it actually does the job, River couldn’t say, but if so she doesn’t want to contemplate how much harder this might be without it.  According to the Doctor, she’d passed hour twenty-three awhile back; her response was such that  afterward he’d wisely kept such observations to himself.  Even so, working or not  the tea is wet, and her mouth is not.  When he holds the cup for her she drinks greedily before curling back into herself.  He sets the cup aside and hurries to the bottom of the bed for another round of pushing.

  
  
  
  


##

  
  


 

“Okay...okay....oh, that has to hurt-- RIver, not so hard, I think that’s going to tear--”  He winces visibly, but she’s not able to stop.

 

“I need to-- ohhhh!”  River has found her voice and she shouts, loud enough the TARDIS begins humming in concern, or possibly sympathy.  For a moment River would swear it looks like the voice interface has materialised behind the Doctor, a white lab coat incongruously layered over space steampunk finery and hair peeking crazily out of a twenty-first century surgical bonnet.  Then her eyes close again and she begins to push, hard, willing the baby to push along with her and be born now.  She feels the burn of fragile tissues, perineum stretching thin as her child pushes against the last barrier between herself and being born--

 

“One more push, sweetheart--”

 

And she pushes and shouts-- yells-- unable  _ not  _ to do either.  And then the pressure abates, just a little, and

 

“Her head’s out!  RIver, stop pushing!”

 

He’s doing something down there-- Gods know what, certainly River doesn’t, something about _cord_ and _looped over one shoulder_? That doesn't sound right-- and then there’s the strangest feeling of something slithering and she’s pretty sure she’s not birthing a Silurian but _ holy Hell what was that _ ? And then she hears her.

 

A surprisingly long wail from newborn lungs  and a sharp nudge against her mind ( _needneedcoldneedbrightlightsneedfrightenedMUMMY!_ )

  
  


and River reaches between her knees to touch her child.  

  
  


She can see in the mirror now.  She and the Doctor have both moved and she can see a small red bundle in his hands. ( _ Smaller than she expected, really, but my Gods, that head came out of where? _ )  He uses something she can't quite make out ( _ and really doesn't want to _ ) to clean fluids from the baby's nose and mouth, then he's lifting her so that River can better see.  She's covered in amniotic fluid and blood and some kind of cheesy substance that looks like Neufchatel streaked in strawberry jam, and appears to be very cross and uncomfortable, judging by the continued wailing and the silvery flutters of fear and hurt against her mind.  River shifts slightly and reaches for her daughter.

 

"Oh!" 

  
  
It's all she can think of to say as the Doctor lifts the baby to her breast.  The wailing subsides almost immediately, and she can still feel the ephemeral silver nudges of her child's mind, quieting now against hers.  Her cord is still intact-- the placenta hasn't been delivered yet, and it's a strange sort of connected-but-separateness that she knows will end soon. If River were a religious woman she’d use the term sacred-- and as an archaeologist she just might, even so.  ( _ Thou art goddess _ .)  The thought makes her almost sad, almost wistful for the moments just hours ago that she'd so wished to be over.

 

Almost.  Because her daughter is in her arms.

 

River shifts position to accommodate the child-- she's half sitting now, the bed having been raised for support. She cradles her daughter in one arm, stroking her with one finger on the other hand.  So soft, and just a bit sticky, but she hardly notices that.  Instinctively, a tiny mouth roots against her skin, finding her nipple and latching on, then losing it again only to start the search over.   River repositions her breast against the baby's mouth and she latches on once more.  She begins to suck, and the sensation takes River by surprise.

 

It's not that she hasn't had someone's mouth on her breast-- suckling at her nipples, even-- before.  It’s one of her favorite things, really.  But it's not like this, not the same...and yet this is definitely the most sensual, even the most sexual (in the  _ when a mommy and daddy love each other very much _ sense of the word) experience she has ever known.  
  
  


__ Beautiful.  
  


  
He hadn’t said it aloud, but River hears him in her head, and she tears her eyes from her child to look up at her husband.  His eyes are suspiciously wet, as are hers, but neither move to hide the fact.  It doesn’t need hidden-- not damage at all, but in a way, healing.

 

“She is, isn’t she?” River says softly, and her smile is beatific, a complete turnaround from the weary woman threatening to render his manhood as dead as the languages in which she'd cursed it.  He chuckles softly, and strokes her hair with his fingertips. It's a moment before he can gather himself to speak again, his voice thick with emotion.

 

“You both are.”

  
  
He leans down  and kisses her, softly, thoroughly, and she kisses him back with almost no evidence of her earlier weariness (and just a bit of tongue).  The moment lengthens, stretches, interrupted only by River shifting the baby to her other breast.  Then she winces, hard, and he reaches to steady the baby.

 

“Contractions have restarted,” she says breathlessly.  “Not as band as before but-- Christ!  There’s not another baby!  You did check?”

 

He props her arm with  pillow to ensure the baby wouldn’t suddenly go flying,  and moves back toward the bottom of the bed,  “Just the placenta, River.  You’re very nearly done.”

  
  
She moans quietly, her knees coming apart once more, and pushes with the next wave.  And then she’s done; the Doctor clamps the cord and cuts it-- and if he gets sprayed just the slightest bit when the cord is cut, he doesn’t seem to mind, just wipes it off his cheek with the back of his hand and goes on about what he was doing.   


  
The baby, now sleepy from the enormity of being born, doesn’t seem to notice, either.  But River feels the connection changing, fading, and quietly mourns the realisation that she and her baby are now fully separate.

 

In the background, the TARDIS is humming something that sounds quite like Brahms: Opus forty-eight?  Forty-nine? The  _ Wiegenlied _ , that famous lullaby, whichever one it is.  River hadn’t realised her mum was such a sentimental old thing, but she supposes not every sentient ship gets to meet her granddaughter. She smiles as the Doctor comes back to join her on the bed.

  
  
“Are you pleased?” she asks him,sounding almost unsure, and he chuckles.

 

“Very pleased.  She’s a gift, River.  I never expected such a gift.” If he’s still a bit choked up, RIver chooses not to notice.  “Thank you.”

 

They sit in a comfortable silence, only the sound of Brahms in the room.  The lights have dimmed, and the half-darkness feels intimate, warm-- secure, possibly the most secure River has ever felt in her life.  Not that that’s setting the bar high, to be sure. But she feels safe, and ready to drift off to sleep.  She settles against him, and the Doctor takes their child in his arms, humming tunelessly to her along with the ship.

 

“Sweetie?” River says, half- asleep already.  “I think I know her name.  The TARDIS told me, ages ago, but I didn't understand then. It works for both sides, really...for Gallifreyan conventions, and--” she yawns,  “-- as a continuation of mine.”

 

He doesn’t say anything, merely cocks one eyebrow and stops humming, but she takes that as indication to continue.

 

“Long music. The TARDIS said there will be long music." River smiles up at her husband and child. "Her name is Symphony.”

  
  


 

 


End file.
